Solon Michaelides’s Harmony of Contemporary Music: A Potential Impact that Never Materialized

Solon Michaelides presented his two-volume Αρμονία της Σύγχρονης Μουσικής [Harmony of Contemporary Music] to the celebrated Greek conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos around 1939, six years prior to its publication in 1945. According to Michaelides, Mitropoulos’s reaction was quite impulsive, urging the Cypriot composer to publish the book in the English language. Mitropoulos believed that the book was an invaluable addition to the music-theoretic scholarship, and that an English translation would allow it to have considerable impact. Unpublished sources indicate that Mitropolous broadcasted this opinion to the highest musical circles in New York City during his directorship at the New York Philharmonic orchestra.